#jtkpara

A message from someone in Georgia that Bones needed to hear. Jim hadn't gone into any more detail besides that, but it'd been enough to put him on edge. Bones tried to think of anyone in Georgia that A) knew Jim and B) would send him a message involving the both of them. The fact that Jim hadn't used a name, instead using the anonymous "someone" instead wasn't helpful either. It hadn't been Gram, which ruled out everyone important. His mind quickly wondered if Jocelyn had something to do with the message, but he hoped she hadn't. There was nothing that he had to say to her, and she sure as hell didn't need to send either of them messages.

Overcome with nerves and the desire to know just what in the hell was going on, Bones gave up on trying to do any work. He'd just wind up staring at the same vial of medicine if he kept trying to force himself into getting his head back in the game. Without further ado, Bones clocked himself out and left in a rush. M'Benga would have his ass for leaving early but Bones couldn't care less for the moment. He tried to keep his head on straight as he crossed the campus in a hurry, finding himself at their dorm door in absolutely no time at all.

Leonard McCoy had been in Stockholm for all of a half hour, but he'd already come to one big conclusion about the city on Riddarfjärden Bay. The conclusion? He liked it a hell of a lot better than he did San Francisco. It was cold (his PADD registered the temperature as a chilly 45 degrees), the sky was a shade of dark grey, and he loved how the city had been built up around the water. Bones was also instantly charmed by the fact that he felt like he'd stepped back in time. Stockholm also seemed to have escaped much of the modernization that'd come with life after World War III and the founding of the Federation. The buildings still held their Old World charm, with short, stocky, brick buildings lining the waterways and streets. The only real signs of what century it happened to be lay within the city centre, where the tall, sleek, metal buildings common of the era soared upwards into the sky. Although Bones had no proof, he was willing to assume that the government, all its related subservices and the medical services occupied those buildings, while everyone else lived in the buildings that served as reminders of a time long past.

"Damn fine place to hold a medical conference." The words came out as an angry grumble, his default setting after any shuttle ride, but he meant what he'd said. He had no clue why the conference leaders had chosen Stockholm, but he was happy that they had. He was also secretly happy that Jim had gotten him invited to the conference, though he still wasn't too keen about having to lead a lecture. The thought of telling a bunch of doctors about his "achievements" made him feel a bit nauseous. They would all ooh and ahh over him and what he'd done, but to him it seemed like old news. It'd been nothing special to begin with, certainly nothing worth being summoned to Stockholm over. He was sure Jim could read everything he happened to be thinking as they walked down the street, luggage in tow behind them, but he simply didn't care. Jim could read his face all day long if he wanted to. 

Are you okay? You took a pretty bad beating in there. Let me at least take you to a hospital, sir. Bones shook his head, blood dripping from his nose. "No. No. A doctor. I'm a doctor. Medical degree an' everythin'. I can take care-a m'self." He stood up, leaning up against the wall as a means of support. The man in front of him didn't seem convinced, latching onto his arm and refusing to let go. Where d'you live? At least let me make sure you get home okay. It's the least I can do after you stood up for me like that. Bones had to think about it for a moment, his mind clouded as an effect of both all the injuries he'd sustained and the excessive amount of alcohol in his system. "Mmm. Starfleet Academy. They ain't gonna letcha past the gates. I can make it from there." Bones laughed, a loud guffawing that echoed throughout the bathroom they were in. Mmmkay. Come on, man. Let's get you back home. The other man led Bones out of the bar, out into the dark San Francisco night. The fog had rolled in off the bay, making it almost impossible to see more than 3 feet in front of them, but somehow they managed to get back to campus relatively unscathed. Bones had stumbled and fallen on his face at least three times, the other man surprised by just how little his companion seemed to care. He didn't understand how the Starfleet Academy student had managed to instigate and successfully win a fight with the man that'd been harassing him, as drunk as he seemed to be, but he appreciated it nonetheless. When they reached the gates, the other man gave Bones a pat on the back, another expression of thanks, then turned around and disappeared back into the fog, leaving the wasted southern doctor to get through campus on his own.

It was a hard task, getting back to the dorm, especially as the ground seemed intent on rising up to meet him with every other step. Bones had a hard time taking his mind off of the fact that every single part of his body seemed to be throbbing or bleeding. He was especially reminded of these injuries when he'd run into something, bouncing back in a daze for a moment, trying to make heads or tails of where the hell he was. After what felt like 10 consecutive hours of walking around, Bones found himself practically crawling up the stairwell of his dorm, laughing and giggling the whole way. He couldn't bring himself to care about just how loud he was being, or the fact that he couldn't really remember which floor his dorm was on, much less which door happened to belong to him. Something about the third floor sounded correct in his mind, which is where he found himself ten minutes later, pressed up against the door that he thought belonged to him. He'd tried punching in the passcode (was it 4917 or 9714?) but had no success, the door refused to open for him.

Maddie spent the entire first half of the school day wondering what Jim Kirk could possibly want to talk to her about that he couldn't simply come out and ask for in a PADD message. Maddie knew that it couldn't be extra tuition, otherwise he would've mentioned it like a normal person, rather than asking to meet. She briefly wondered if Jim had some idea that she would help him cheat his way through a course, but she pushed that thought aside, believing that Jim Kirk wasn't that sort of young man. By the time lunch rolled around, she'd stopped trying to guess what he wanted, deciding that she'd only work herself into a tizzy by guessing. She spent the other half of the school day taking pride in the fact that Jim Kirk trusted her, something that she doubted many other teachers at Starfleet Academy could claim.

At 19:00 on the dot, Maddie found herself on the lone bench at Golden Gate Point, her eyes trying to make out Marin County on the other side of the bay, an impossible task with all the fog that'd rolled out in as the day progressed on. She pulled her jacket tightly around her, trying to offset the breeze that rolled in off the bay. If Jim doesn't show up soon, I'm heading home. He seriously can't expect me to sit out here in the fog and the wind, can he? She had hoped that Jim Kirk would be a punctual sort of man, but he'd managed to prove her wrong in this instance. Just as she bent her head to look at her watch, the sound of footsteps on gravel caught her attention. She twisted her neck to look behind her, finding Mr. Kirk making his way through the fog towards her.

She had always expected to see Leonard McCoy's name in the papers one day. What she never expected was for his name to be in the papers over something good, especially not something good attached to Starfleet. When she picked up the morning paper on a rainy Saturday afternoon to find an article on the front page about how one Leonard McCoy of San Francisco had resumed travel between two worlds with his vaccine for ADF Syndrome, she knew it was time to get back in touch with the man she'd once known. She gave notice to her boss that she'd be taking a few days off and travelling out west, so she packed her bags and did exactly that. On the midnight shuttle out of Atlanta, Georgia, someone wicked started to think about what she'd say to Leonard McCoy, how he'd react, and what she needed to expect in the way of a warm welcome. By the time she stepped off the shuttle in San Francisco, she'd only managed to come to the conclusion that she needed to expect the unexpected.

Hoping that she'd get the chance to talk with Leonard, the woman stepped onto the campus of Starfleet Academy, completely unsure of where she'd find the man she was looking for somewhere quite so large. Buildings sprawled from the gates all the way to the other end of the Presidio, right out into the San Francisco Bay. It took her the better part of an hour to find a single person who knew who she was looking for, and all they could do was point her in the direction of the med bay. When she arrived there, she was informed that Dr. McCoy had just left several hours earlier, but that they could leave a message if she so desired. She declined, but managed to get his residency information out of an intern who (for whatever reason) operated under the assumption that she was an student at the Academy.

First dates. In his entire life, Leonard McCoy had been on two first dates. One in the eighth grade with a girl he didn't care that much for, and then another time in his sophomore year of college with a woman named Jocelyn. Tonight marked the third (and hopefully last) first date he'd ever go on. For Jim, however, it was his first first date. And because of that, Bones had gone out of his damn way to make sure everything was in place to make the night something special for the man he loved. He'd been agonizing over where to take Jim for weeks, when the idea finally came to him after a drunken night with the younger man. The planetarium. It seemed to him that Jim loved space, seeing as he wanted to spend most of his life up in the stars. Bones wanted to give Jim the chance to experience a night under the stars, even if they lived in one of the more light-polluted cities on the planet. The planetarium presented that opportunity, what with its large projection hall designed specifically for shows about astronomy and the great unknown.

He'd spent the morning calling around to the various planetariums in San Francisco, trying to rent out a whole one for the night. It was overkill, renting out a whole projection hall for two people, but it just didn't seem special enough if they were sharing the show with a bunch of other civilians and whiny kids. In the end, the Morrison Planetarium agreed to reserve the hall for the night in exchange for an obscene amount of money, which Bones forked over without a single complaint. He wasn't loaded, but he wasn't exactly hurting for money either. For all it was worth, Bones had hardly spent any money since he'd joined Starfleet, as almost all the expenses he would've incurred were covered by the Academy itself. He could afford to splurge for one night, although he refused to make a habit of it. In regards to transportation, Bones had managed to get a coworker to let him borrow his car, so long as Bones took over one of the man's shifts a few days later. It seemed like a fair trade to him, so he had the keys to the car dropped in his lap a few minutes before it was time to leave along with the news that he'd be working third shift on Saturday night in return.

When 19:00 rolled around and the sun gave way to the moon rising above the clouds, Leonard McCoy clocked out at the med bay and made his way back to the dorm, stopping in a few places on the way. By the time he arrived at the door to his room, he'd changed out of his medical outfit and into a dark sweater and a pair of jeans, with a small bouquet of roses in his right hand. He'd considered bringing dinner for them to eat before they left, but he'd managed to get the planetarium staff to agree to have food on site for when they arrived. With his free hand, Bones punched the key combination into the keypad and waited for the door to slide open.

Bones, for all his empty threats, never particularly thought of himself as a violent person. People got under his skin, no doubt, but he never wanted to actually go so far as to inflict pain on those that'd irritated him. On the contrary, his entire life was focused on healing those that'd been wounded. So it came as a shock to him that one Monday afternoon he found himself giving serious thought to throwing a punch at the next person to get in his line of thought with some inane question or piece of paperwork that needed his signature. The day had started off in the gutter, but had quickly dissolved into nothing more than Bones yelling at interns and cleaning up the messes that were being made all around him. Part of it, he surmised, was the fact that he'd gotten absolutely no sleep the night before. Even with his space heater all wrapped around him, he'd done nothing but stare at the walls until the sun rose.

By the time lunch came around, Bones could feel the anger practically radiating off of his skin, although most of it was coming out through his mouth. It was obvious that he wouldn't get shit done if he kept storming around the lab like he had been, so he decided to clock out early and go home for the day. He was going to go home and lie in bed for the rest of the day. Even though it was completely irresponsible, he had even decided to skip the only class he had that day, deciding that he'd make up the work the next day. When the clock struck noon, Bones slammed all of his paperwork into a filing cabinet and went straight for his dorm, not bothering with lunch.

Madeleine Thomas had never once had a student miss the first day of her class. To her, it screamed that the student didn't care enough to show up and would probably wind up with a failing grade before the end of the week. Before she'd found his name on her roster, she'd never even heard of James Tiberius Kirk. So when she messaged Jim Kirk to inquire his whereabouts, she expected him to reply with an air of superiority and general smugness that came with the territory of teaching those generally unlearned in the way of the world. Instead, what she got was the reply of a genuine and caring young man who had only missed class to help a friend. It certainly threw her for a loop, a far cry from the first impression that she'd expected. 

Kirk was slated to come in later in the day to make up the lesson that he'd missed, and Maddie was admittedly excited to get some face time with the walking contradiction himself. And so it was that Madeleine Thomas found herself leaning against a desk in a disused classroom at just shy of 17:00, waiting for Jim Kirk to come waltzing through the door. She'd already gotten all the paperwork that he needed ready and sitting on a desk to the side, and the main floor was clear of any other desks, adequate room for practice. As she turned her back to grab her water bottle, she heard a knock on the door.